LBPD Receives $600,000 Grant to Strengthen Community Relations

The Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) has been awarded a two-year, $600,000 grant from the California Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) to strengthen police-community relations and help ensure fair and impartial policing throughout Long Beach neighborhoods. The Long Beach City Council formally accepted the grant at its public meeting on July 19, 2016.

“Every day our Long Beach Police Officers are working hard to keep our community safe under extremely challenging circumstances,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “This grant award will help to build on the City’s continued efforts to implement 21st Century Policing and practices that foster trust and build community.”

The BSCC Strengthening Law Enforcement and Community Relations grant will be aimed at enhancing collaborative approaches to reinforce police-community partnership, trust, and communication. The grant will also be used to provide training for LBPD officers, implement best policing practices and models, and support programs that address the needs of victims, offenders, and the community.

“This grant will allow the Long Beach Police Department to provide officers with ongoing training in procedural justice, as well as enhanced training in de-escalation and implicit bias,” said Police Chief Robert Luna. “Such training is consistent with the Strategic Vision of the Long Beach Police Department and reflects the recommendations provided by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.”

The LBPD has a long-standing commitment and many ongoing efforts to improve performance, ensure accountability, and serve the community. These efforts include developing a new curriculum to learn best practices to deal with the mentally ill and homeless, investing in new equipment, developing comprehensive communication plans to increase communication with the public, and enhancing investigatory capabilities for the Citizen’s Police Complaint Commission.

The BSCC grant award mirrors recent efforts spearheaded by President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which was created to strengthen community policing and trust among law enforcement officers and the communities that they serve.

The BSCC grant award is aligned with the goals of the Safe Long Beach Safe Communities strategies. Adopted by the City Council in May 2014, Safe Long Beach, the City’s Violence Prevention Plan, addresses a broad safety agenda aimed at reducing all forms of violence, including domestic abuse, child abuse, elder abuse, hate crimes, bullying, gang violence, and violent crime. The Plan draws upon the City’s many existing assets to target violence at its root and attain the goal of building a safer Long Beach by 2020.

Comments

The LBPD is a bottomless pit that will never have enough $$$$$$. At present, their expenses eat up over half of the entire city’s budget. Add in asset forfeiture where victims must prove their innocence while they are deprived of means to do so…..and the PD is awash in ill-gotten $$$$$. They reward their own for numbers of arrests instead of good policing. They concentrate on low-level drug offenses to bolster their “arrest records” and put citizens at risk in the tangled webs they weave. The solving of real crimes such as murder, rape and robbery falls victim to this diversion of resources. Their history of killing unarmed “suspects” (many of whom were mentally ill) speaks volumes. Not very long ago, they sought to squelch records requests and sued to keep from revealing the names of officers involved in these murders. It is no wonder they have had to hire an expensive $$$$ PR firm (the CEO is the spouse of an LBPD Commander) and apply for grants to cover up their misdeeds….. so much for transparency. Sadly, the Citizen’s Police Complaint Commission has become a rubber-stamping entity for the LBPD to hide behind as an additional veil for their misconduct.